by Siri | Mar 8, 2024 | Chronic Illness
Set boundaries at work based on your energy. Know how
The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 put what was important into stark perspective. That was the time when the boundaries between work and life were severely blurred – more than normal.
Every second hour, I heard news of someone dying. It was scary. One would think that a global pandemic would help me to have priorities in order: me, my health, and then work.
Nah. We know it doesn’t work like that. Sometimes, we don’t learn from our experiences at all.
When I returned from my sabbatical during the peak of the pandemic, I was immediately assigned a flailing and failing project. It was a data privacy regulatory project, so be it pandemic or not, we had to ensure that we were compliant with regulations. Otherwise, the bank would risk being fined heavily for its lapses.
It was mayhem. I attended 13 meetings a day without any gaps between meetings. I was in debilitating pain all through the day, and my energy was at an all-time low.
When I woke up in the morning, I was running at 30% battery. It took an hour to get out of bed and some more to get dressed. By the time I had logged in for work, I was out of energy and running on a critical red 10%.
I then had to use that 10% to get through the work day, which had at least 7-8 hours of back-to-back meetings.
It was stupid and heroic effort that got me through for six months.
At the end of the workday, I would zone out entirely and not be capable of even making a simple meal. I survived the pandemic on Zomato and Swiggy, delivering three meals daily.
In the back of my head, I knew I had to step back, pause, and make sure I had time to take care of myself. But I was so caught up in the pressing demands of work that I could not extricate myself from work. Then, at the end of six months, I pulled the project out of stormy waters, and we were sailing in smooth seas.
By the time I was done, I had to take a month of sick leave to explore treatment options to manage the debilitating pain, which was making it hard to walk for even 5 minutes.
I returned to work with the news that I had been kicked out of the project.
I was livid and then amused. This had happened to me so many times. I would burn the midnight oil to “rescue” a project, and once the rescue was accomplished, I would be kicked out. I refused to learn anything from my experiences and kept repeating my patterns.
On that project, my counterpart had a heart attack. I buffered my team members against stress so they did not burn the candle at both ends. But I took the impact for them – emotionally, mentally and physically. That was not a sustainable way to work.
This was a critical lesson in boundaries at work.
Boundaries at work are typically considered a demarcated time for work and life—a set time for work and the rest of the time for life.
Even if I was clear about not working more than 10 hours a day, I wasn’t quite adept at managing my boundaries within those hours. With a chronic illness, I wasn’t running at 100% battery in a day. That’s never happened in the past decade.
During the 10 hours I worked (10% more than what was mandated by my contract, which also clearly stated that we were to be flexible about the number of work hours and that if necessary, we had to work longer hours without additional compensation), I squeezed every last drop out of the 10% battery I had started with.
This meant I could not be 100% attentive in all my meetings. I was having trouble staying focused, processing information and being present for the duration of the meeting. On reflection, I realised that with even 10% energy spread throughout the day, I could do an excellent job of pulling a failing project out of the woods.
This insight changed the way I worked since then. I had to learn to first up my energy battery level in the morning and quit when I was still ahead. If I started with 10%, I had to quit even before I started.
Knowing your energy battery’s size, capacity, and quality is essential if you have a chronic illness that comes with energy management issues.
Here are three questions you could use to set boundaries at work based on your energy
- At the beginning of the day, what is your energy battery level?
- Subtract energy battery to do self-care activities and life activities that have to be done.
- With the rest of the battery, assess your work day to see what is realistic and can be accomplished without killing yourself.
It is vital to organise your work day and activities around your energy levels and to know at what point it would be so counterproductive that you would have to pay the price for it with your body.
When your body is already under chronic and prolonged stress from chronic illness, you would have to make radical changes to your work and life to ensure you can have a quality of life, a life that is worth living and not merely about survival on an everyday basis.
For many of us, work is a big part of the day. We spend anywhere between 8-12 hours at work. That is a significant portion of energy battery.
You need to understand and work with the energy battery rather than pushing past or ignoring it. This will make work much more fulfilling and satisfying and make you dread your Mondays less.
This article could spark questions, so if you have any, drop me a note, and I’d be happy to consider addressing them in future articles.
This article is part of a series I am writing on Chronic Illness and Navigating Working Life.
by Siri | Mar 1, 2024 | Chronic Illness
Creating your version of freedom fund
Life is short! You live only once! So go and follow your dreams.
This can sound like magical thinking to some of us, especially if we are not in a position to drop things and go and follow our hearts. There are bills to be paid, loved ones to care for and other practical things to do.
But it does not mean you give up on living or following your dreams or discovering new dreams, even if you are chronically ill and support yourself/your family financially.
It came into keen focus for me as I grappled with limited mobility, low energy and other health issues that I would want to go out and do my own thing, for once.
But I wasn’t sure or confident about 3 things.
1) What do I want to do?
2) Can I afford to do it?
3) Do I have it in me to go out on my own?
Answering the first and the third questions was difficult. I did not know the answer. Question number 2 seemed to be the only “objective” question with a yes or no answer. I instinctively answered, no.
Then I paused and asked myself, “How do you know you can’t afford it?”
I didn’t know what it would take to afford to go out on my own. I simply did not know.
So I flipped question number 2 to, “How can I make sure I can afford it?”
The answer, after going down a rabbit hole of personal finance books (I have read around 30 books on this topic and consumed a multitude of podcasts and blog posts), I came across an interesting concept called “Fuck You Fund”.
A “Fuck You” Fund lets you walk out of any situation where staying it in is no longer constructive for your being – either in terms of physical, emotional or psychological safety. So many people stay in environments or people that are traumatic and injurious to their being because they can’t “afford” to walk away.
Having a “Fuck You” fund means you can “afford to” walk away from situations
I expanded this concept to three levels that were helpful for me to create financial independence, leave the corporate job (golden handcuffs and all), and start my own heart-centred business.
The three levels are
1. Fuck You Fund
2. Sabbatical Fund
3. Freedom Fund
Level 1: Fuck You Fund
This amounts to 1-3 months of living expenses. If you do not track your expenses to the last penny or even broadly, you might wonder how much money that is.
The next month, you receive your salary, put it in an account, and look at how much money is left at the end of the month. Make sure there are no other inflows to this account.
You can do it for a month, or two or three, and you will get an idea of your living expenses. If you are doing it for the first time, you might be shocked when you see how much money is spent on monthly expenses.
At your current spending level, keep aside one month of living expenses. Slowly grow it to 3 months.
There, you have your Fuck You Fund, which lets you have the option of walking away. Having this option doesn’t mean you have to exercise it. Still, it offers an enormous amount of psychological safety to know that you can walk away from a situation and not stay in it because you don’t have the financial means to do so.
This is crucial if you are working while chronically ill because everyday stressors can exaggerate your health and symptoms. If stress at work continues to be high or chronic, you would want the option to walk away if things don’t turn around. It is not worth trading your health for money, and having the financial means to walk away is helpful.
Level 2: Sabbatical Fund
When I marked 16 years of working, I realised I had never taken extended time off. By the 16th year, I was tired physically, mentally and emotionally. My health was taking a nose dive, and I wanted to have a few months off from work. I did not want to resign (I couldn’t afford to!) but wanted to take a sabbatical.
I wouldn’t be earning during the sabbatical period, so I needed to ensure that I had 6 months’ worth of living expenses in the bank.
My sabbatical fell right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. I started my sabbatical in July 2020 until the end of the year. I wanted to go backpacking in Europe for my break, but the pandemic and fibromyalgia ensured that this wasn’t happening.
But in preparation for the sabbatical (preparation time was two years), I had set aside six months of living expenses and some money for travel. Instead, I was able to use this fund to move to better living conditions, attend workshops, furnish my new house and give myself more comfort than I did not before.
A sabbatical fund can be between 6 months to 5 years of living expenses, depending on what works best for you.
You can use the sabbatical fund to take a break, start a new business, travel, recuperate, or get treatments done to improve your health. The Sabbatical Fund ensures that you have time at your disposal for whatever duration you choose.
I learnt Tai Chi during my Sabbatical and trained as a Mindfulness Facilitator during this period, both of which improved my life and health. The mindfulness facilitator training led to a significant career shift as a Community Manager for my bank’s award-winning mindfulness program two years later.
If you have built up your Fuck You Fund, you can start working on your Sabbatical Fund. Start with 6 months, 9, 12, 15 and go on for whatever period you want a sabbatical.
Level 3: Freedom Fund
This Freedom Fund is my ultimate financial goal, where I can accumulate enough of a corpus so that I don’t have to worry about money forever and can do whatever I want! This is not as unrealistic as one thinks.
This is, in essence, what we traditionally think of as retirement. A Freedom Fund is your Retirement Fund.
There is a concept called FIRE – Financial Independence Retire Early. If you know your FIRE number, you can work towards accumulating that corpus. When you reach that corpus number, you can leave your job and live off by withdrawing a certain percentage.
Dear reader, if this interests you, I can explore how I will do this in future articles.
What happens when I have emergencies?
This is a question that would come up for me when I started funding my Fuck You Fund and Sabbatical Fund. After looking at my expenses and realising I couldn’t get a mathematical model of predicting my emergency expenses, I have kept aside 15% of my annual expenses in a separate fund called “Emergency Fund” that helps me deal with emergencies. Mostly health-related. If I have a test or a treatment I need to take, then the emergency fund helps me deal with it.
In summary, levelling up your savings game into a goal-oriented game to create your levels of freedom can be empowering if you are working when chronically ill and would like to have the option to take a break to focus on yourself.
Write to Me!
This article could spark questions, so if you have any, drop me a note, and I’d be happy to consider addressing them in future articles.
This article is the continuation of my 30-part series on Chronic Illness and Work. If you are not subscribed, do so here. When you subscribe, you will receive the series as and when it is released in your inbox.
by Siri | Feb 23, 2024 | Chronic Illness
What’s money doing in a series on chronic illness and work?
Everything! If you think about it, the most fundamental reason why most of us work is to earn a living.
Unless you are worried about losing your job, knee-deep in debt, or struggling to make your daily expenses, money is one of those things that we take for granted. It moves to the background, and it is something that we don’t pay attention to unless we need it and can’t find it.
When you are less than healthy, having flexibility with your money becomes essential.
So, what does money get you? Money is a tool of exchange. You can exchange money for three things.
Time is vital when you are not well for an extended period.
You need more time in your day to do your exercise, breathing exercises, take care of your nutrition, meditate and many other things. Suddenly, some things become necessary to manage your health daily.
Before I focused on my inner life, I had no semblance of a routine in my everyday life. The only constant in the day was that I would need to turn up at work.
As I started working on getting my mind in place, I began introducing and experimenting with new habits in my everyday routine. And, to my surprise, I realised they were time-consuming!
My morning routine, with breaks, now takes up to 2.5 hours daily. The activities add up to two hours, but I have realised I need at least 10 minutes to transition from one activity to the next.
Energy becomes a premium when you have a chronic illness.
While working for my previous employer, I ran on a 20% battery on most days, which depleted quickly if I had any stress during the day.
The demands that others have on my time, my work, the goals and the objectives, plus numerous interactions on a day-to-day basis and dealing with office politics, ensured that I was quickly depleted in the first few hours of the day.
I can see the difference between the time I was working in a corporate job (pre-July 2023) and now when I am self-employed.
Now, I am running at 75% battery on most days, and when I am depleted, I have the autonomy to organise my day in a way that supports my body. I don’t have to force myself to get through a workday when I am unable to.
Choices gain a new meaning when you have a chronic illness.
I wanted to have choices of treatment that were not covered by my health insurance. I wanted choices of work, working hours, location, unplugging off my internet, and number of leaves. I liked to have options in terms of the people I worked with.
I wanted choices to not put up with stuff I didn’t have to. I wanted a lot more autonomy regarding my time off and flexibility to schedule them when I wanted to instead of aligning my deliveries, project deadlines and colleagues’ leave schedules.
Also, some choices start getting restricted with chronic illness. Travel became one of those. It would take me weeks to recover from a week’s trip, even if it were a vacation. If I had a meeting late in the evening, it disrupted my biorhythm.
Disruption in sleep schedules was taking a massive toll on my body. I had to think carefully and plan well for a trip or a late evening meeting!
Money helps give more flexibility with time, energy and choices.
If you are less than well, with any long-term health condition, this is one area of your life that needs to come to the forefront, even if you seem to be settled for now.
But more money does not always give you flexibility.
Sometimes, you might need to trade off a lower income for more energy, time and choices. You’ve got to understand the sweet spot of money that gives you this flexibility.
Beyond a point, trading your time and energy for more money could be detrimental to your health in the short and long term.
Just before I quit my corporate job in 2023, I received a pay hike, and my salary came to a level that I could not even imagine. Finally, the gender pay parity gap was starting to close, and my salary was coming close to that of my peers. In another three years(!) I would have been at par.
The money coming into my account took my breath away
I could guarantee my retirement if I continued to earn this money for at least five years. I would not have to worry about my future anymore. This was important to me as a single woman who doesn’t have a family to fall back on.
But I wanted other things that money couldn’t give me. I was being drawn to spend more time cultivating my meditation practice. I wanted time to let my body be. I wanted to explore my interests without worrying about how many leaves (time off) I had.
I wanted more time, space and ease in my life.
With the uncertainty that comes with living with chronic illness and having just lived through a pandemic, it became clear that some things couldn’t wait for another five years.
My life could not wait till I accumulated a golden nest.
I sat with my financial planner, reviewed my finances and decided I had enough in my freedom fund to take two years off.
After six months of just being and enjoying my time and space, I have returned with renewed energy to start Saner Work Life, a dream I had held in a cage for 15 years.
So, coming back to money, there are tradeoffs with time, energy and choices that we make.
These tradeoffs with money need to be brought to awareness and thought about wisely.
If you have a chronic illness, creating a freedom fund, investing money towards your future, managing your expenses, adopting a minimalist attitude in certain areas of life, prioritising your needs and aligning your budget to them, and organising your finances become critical.
I am not a financial planner, but these are the areas I have paid much attention to over the past five years to create financial sufficiency and freedom for myself despite many obstacles.
Your situation will not be the same as mine. None of our situations are. This series of articles gives you a perspective, my experience of what has worked for me, and suggestions you can take away, reflect and adapt to your situation.
We will explore each of these areas in this series on Chronic Illness and Work. If you are not subscribed, do so here. When you subscribe, you will receive the series as and when it is released in your inbox.
